Never Forget.

I can't believe it has been twenty years since my scout jamboree trip. I got to relieve some of it last summer when my wife and I flew to Washington D.C., spending the day with an old friend as we walked up and down the National Mall and visited the Air and Space Museum, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial.

The second day of our trip found us in New York City. We spent the morning riding the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. I started to climb up to the crown, but chickened out midway - good thing I did because I nearly missed the ferry back to Manhattan. We toured the United Nations building, rode the Subway to Shea for a Mets game, took our tour bus through Queens (where I could see the statuary from the 1964 World's Fair), back for a tour of Manhattan (Times Square, Broadway, Empire State building, St. Patrick's cathedral) before stopping for dinner at a very unprepared Burger King. After getting my order, I followed the other scouts across the street and sat in a plaza eating my hamburger (ketchup and mustard only, please), and pondered what we were about to do next.


The final tour of our day was to travel to the top of one of the World Trade Center Towers. I remember feeling nervous. I had certainly never been so high in a building and I was a little scared of how I would deal with the heights. The elevator ride seemed to be shorter than I thought it should be. As I stepped out and looked around the observation deck, I was amazed at the thousands of lights dotting the horizon (it was dusk). I leaned my head against the glass and looked down towards the dark ground, vertigo quickly forcing me to lean back. Before returning to the elevator, I looked around one more time and caught sight of our first adventure that day, the Statue of Liberty in the harbor.